A safe place.
Beginning the practice by taking your awareness down to the points of contact between your body and the surfaces supporting you.
Receiving the sensations of contact.
And allowing yourself to be supported.
And then just acknowledging whatever is present for you right now in the mind and body.
Turning towards our experience.
Just in the mind.
Feelings and emotions.
And sensations throughout the body.
Welcoming all experiences as best you can.
And now moving the awareness to the breath.
Noticing where in the body you experience the breath sensations most easily.
Following the flow of air as it enters and leaves your body.
And exploring,
Allowing a soothing breathing rhythm to emerge.
Allowing the out breath to flow out all the way until it pauses and changes direction.
Letting the body fill on the in breath.
All the way until the next out breath naturally flows.
Deliberately exploring the breath.
Deliberately exploring,
Lengthening and slowing the breath.
Finding a breathing rhythm that works for you.
And now imagining the breathing rhythm that works for you.
Works for you.
Now imagining yourself being at a place where you feel secure and at ease.
A safe place where you can be peacefully alone.
Just the way you are without anybody else around.
It may be a place coming up from memory or fantasy or both.
It can be a place outdoors by the sea,
In the forest or a garden or a place inside.
Maybe a cozy corner in your home.
Allowing yourself to be surprised.
Perhaps several images arise.
Spending time to decide on one.
And as we visualize this safe place in the mind's eye involving all the senses.
What does your place look like?
Does a visual image emerge?
What shapes?
What colours do you see?
And if there is no clear visual image,
That's fine too.
Perhaps your imagination reveals what your other senses would notice at a safe place.
What sounds?
What fragrances?
How does the contact with the surroundings feel?
Do you feel warmth or coolness?
A particular touch or support?
It may just be a subtle sense of an atmosphere of safeness.
Observe all the details of your experience.
Disabilities can be fleeting or different places can pass by.
That's fine.
It's how our minds work.
Acknowledging whatever arises.
Remembering there is no wrong experience.
And that this exercise is at the same time a practice of mindfulness.
All experiences can be welcomed with playful curiosity.
And every response to what you experience,
Pleasant or unpleasant,
Can be noticed with a non-judgmental mind.
Imagining the safe place welcoming you with whatever experience you may have.
And now noticing the effects of imagining a safe place.
What sensations arise in the body when you imagine yourself in this safe place?
How do your muscles feel?
Your face,
Chest,
Belly?
What feelings and thoughts do you notice?
And now imagining the place really appreciates your presence.
Wherever you feel that it finds joy in welcoming you and wishes you well.
How does that affect you?
Imagining the place really appreciating your presence.
However you feel that it finds joy in welcoming you and wishes you well.
Imagining how it is to receive this appreciation.
How does that affect you?
And as we come to the end of the practice,
Knowing that you can always return to this place,
That it can be always here for you.
Ready to welcome you exactly as you are.
So now in your own time,
Letting go of imagining this safe place.
Bringing the attention back to the points of contact between your body and the surfaces supporting you.
Contacting the stable ground beneath you.
Bringing the awareness back to the breath sensations in the body.
The flow of air as it enters and leaves.
And perhaps broadening the awareness to include also the sounds in the room around you and outside.
Fully present in this moment.
Right our puppy.
Yes.
